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Here's one for the kids!!!!

Published in 2013 by Flying Eye Books, this best selling French comic (published in English for the first time) follows the adventures of a naughty West African girl.  

Poor Akissi! The neighbourhood cats are trying to steal her fish, her little monkey Boubou almost ends up in a frying pan and she's nothing but a pest to her older brother Fofana ... But Akissi is a true adventurer, full of silliness and mischief, and nothing will scare her for long!

The Akissi series for kids aged 5-7 years, is written by Marguerite Abouet, creator of the popular Aya comics








Images via Flying Eye Books


10:02 No Comments
 
After having the honour last year of reading stories for children (courtesy of the Golden Baobab), I realised that I really did not pay enough attention to Children’s Literature. While I was thinking of a way to rectify that, a few months ago Kate Iffy Chukwu contacted me asking if I would review her new collection of stories for children. Her request could not have come at a better time.

A Week of Tortoise Tales is a collection of seven short stories, which can be told over the course of the week. The inspiration for this book, which Kate Iffy Chukwu explains at the beginning of the book, is clearly remembering her grandmother’s night-time stories about the tortoise – clever, greedy, silly, or tricky. She writes:

‘In A Week of Tortoise Tales, I have kept to the oral tradition of storytelling while also making it relevant for modern young readers and listeners. Older children will find the tales fascinating. Parents and grandparents will also find the tales appealing to share with children of all ages. These short and simple tales are just right for everyone’.

Each story is described as ‘five minutes of fun!’ and boy are they fun.

On Monday, tortoise learns to fly purely because he ‘was bored. He wanted to do something exciting’. On Tuesday, Tortoise was hungry and helps himself to some sizzling stew made by goat. Sadly on Wednesday, Tortoise was very sad as his cousin was getting married soon and ‘he had no money for a good outfit’. But clever Tortoise finds a way to get some money. By Thursday, Tortoise decides he is not going to play any more tricks, but come Friday, Tortoise finds himself in another competition. On Saturday, tortoise seems to be getting fatter and fatter thanks to his secret magic tree and on Sunday, Tortoise tries to help catch a thief in the animals’ farm. The book ends with a blank page where children can draw their own tortoise or favourite animal. In between the stories, there are fun and interactive questions – some based on the stories themselves and others on more broader themes raised in the stories, such as the kindest thing ever done, an important lesson learnt today and so on.

Honestly, the idea of a story a night for the week is brilliant. I also love the illustration. I know its meant for kids, but I really enjoyed reading it and finding out what tortoise was up to. I even gave it to my mum and asked her to read it – as she used to read bedtime stories to us so I wanted to know what she thought – and she really enjoyed it as well. Now all Kate Iffy Chukwu needs to do is publish Another Week of Tortoise Tales.
12:23 1 Comments
I first heard about Three Strong Women the beginning of 2013. When I was given a review copy by Quercus mid last year I was really excited. Unfortunately, I was not able to read the book until a month ago - so this review is coming in much later than I ever anticipated. Better late than never I say ... and thank you Quercus for the review copy.

Born in France to a French mother and Senegalese father, French novelist and playwright Marie NDiaye published her first novel Quant au Riche Avenir (Regarding the Rich Future) at 18. Her most recent novel, Troise Femmes Puissantes, published in 2009 and translated into English as Three Strong Women in 2012, won France's most respected literary prize - the Prix Goncourt in 2009. She was also a finalist for the 2013 Man Booker International Prize.

Three Strong Women is a three part novel set between France and Senegal and told from the perspective of its three main characters. In Part 1, we meet Norah - a bi-racial French-Senegalese lawyer in her 30s returning to Dakar, Senegal at the request of her elderly father. A wealthy businessman, once immaculately dressed and groomed, he is now aged, overweight and unkempt. From the get-go there is a sense that Norah doesn't really like her father and over the course of her story we find out why. For starters he never found Norah and her sister attractive. More than that, he left his two daughters and their working-class mother in France when they were younger to return to Senegal with his only son, Sony (Norah's younger brother). This one act ruined the family - he may have let his daughters visit their brother a few times, but he did not let his wife visit for the longest time. When he eventually did, the relationship was strained and awkward. Also, while Sony was spoilt and pampered, Norah, her sister and mother struggled to survive in France. Which begs the question, why then has he asked Norah to come to Senegal?

In Part 2, we meet Rudy - a Frenchman married to a Senegalese woman, Fanta. This part happens over the course of the day and we go in and out of Rudy's thoughts learning a bit about Fanta - the strong woman in this tale. Rudy has returned to France after being sacked from his job in Senegal after an incident at the school he worked. He made Fanta and his son, Djibril, move to France with him - even though he was aware Fanta would be unable to get a job in France. While Rudy thinks she is having an affair with his boss, we get a sense of Fanta's frustration and boredom in France. Part 3, tells the story of Khady. Khady is Fanta's cousin, but we also meet her briefly in Part 1 in Norah's father's house as a worker caring for her father's children. We meet Khady a few years later as a young widow whose husband's family decide to send her to France to her cousin Fanta. This story focuses on her not so smooth journey to France.

I'll be honest, the title threw me off a bit - especially after reading Norah's story. I was expecting all stories to be told from a female perspective ... and well, one part is told by a man. So I was reading Rudy's part waiting in anticipation to hear Fanta's voice, her side of the story. Instead I got Rudy's endless stream of consciousness. This made me wonder, what was she going through? As an immigrant in France, unemployed, frustrated, bored. And did she know why her husband was sacked from his job? As for Norah, what happened with her family? And then Khady, did she ever make it to France?

This is definitely not a happy novel, but one thing that struck me while reading it is that in spite of these women's struggles, their strength comes from them just trying to survive their individual battles. 
14:34 1 Comments
There's more!!!! Following on from my post on six new releases for 2014, there are two more books to look forward to this year - The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani, published by Penguin Books and out now and then All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu - published by Knopf and out March 4th.

Before he can retire, Las Vegas detective Salazar is determined to solve a recent spate of murders. When he encounters a pair of conjoined twins with a container of blood near their car, he’s sure he has apprehended the killers, and enlists the help of Dr. Sunil Singh, a South African transplant who specializes in the study of psychopaths. As Sunil tries to crack the twins, the implications of his research grow darker. Haunted by his betrayal of loved ones back home during apartheid, he seeks solace in the love of Asia, a prostitute with hopes of escaping that life. But Sunil’s own troubled past is fast on his heels in the form of a would-be assassin.

Suspenseful through the last page, The Secret History of Las Vegas is Chris Abani’s most accomplished work to date, with his trademark visionary prose and a striking compassion for the inner lives of outsiders.


From acclaimed author Dinaw Mengestu, a recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 award, The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 award, and a 2012 MacArthur Foundation genius grant, comes an unforgettable love story about a searing affair between an American woman and an African man in 1970s America and an unflinching novel about the fragmentation of lives that straddle countries and histories.  



All Our Names is the story of two young men who come of age during an African revolution, drawn from the safe confines of the university campus into the intensifying clamor of the streets outside. But as the line between idealism and violence becomes increasingly blurred, the friends are driven apart—one into the deepest peril, as the movement gathers inexorable force, and the other into the safety of exile in the American Midwest. There, pretending to be an exchange student, he falls in love with a social worker and settles into small-town life. Yet this idyll is inescapably darkened by the secrets of his past: the acts he committed and the work he left unfinished. Most of all, he is haunted by the beloved friend he left behind, the charismatic leader who first guided him to revolution and then sacrificed everything to ensure his freedom.

Elegiac, blazing with insights about the physical and emotional geographies that circumscribe our lives, All Our Names is a marvel of vision and tonal command. Writing within the grand tradition of Naipul, Greene, and Achebe, Mengestu gives us a political novel that is also a transfixing portrait of love and grace, of self-determination and the names we are given and the names we earn. 

10:45 No Comments
 As my partner was heading home for the holidays, and I needed to step back from my thesis and clear my head, I took some time off work and spent pre-Christmas in Victoria, BC - which is an absolutely gorgeous city. 


2011 - Snowy Victoria/2013 - Sunny (for Winter) Victoria
The last time I was there in January 2011, it was covered in snow and absolutely freezing. So imagine my joy, when I got there and it was warmer than England. 

Remembering Russell books and the gorgeous Munro Books - which I found out during this trip was founded by Alice Munro and her then husband, Jim Munro - I had to check them out again. At Russell books I found a copy of Aya: The Secrets Come Out. I know it's not the first in the series but I've been dying to read this graphic novel. Now I have one, I am hoping the rest will follow. 

Russell Books was also a great place to buy Christmas gifts. My partner wanted to give his mum and sister novels written by Nigerian authors and I thought Adichie would be  a great female author for them. So we got Half of A Yellow Sun for his mum and Americanah for his sister. I wasn't there on Christmas day when they opened it, but he said they absolutely loved it :D. 

Renaissance Books and UVic Bookstore
We also checked out Renaissance Books, a used bookstore tucked away in an alley just off Bastion Square. Here I got a copy of Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin. There were some gems here, and what really stood out was the really cool illustrated book section. It also has a great selection of 1st edition books. I've recently got interested in collecting books, so I've started keeping my eye out for places where I can find reasonably priced, first edition and rare books - and this is certainly one I will keep in mind for the future. There was also this cute independent coffee shop and bookstore, James Bay Coffee and Books - really warm and inviting. One bookstore that actually caught me by surprise - UVic Bookstore. It was certainly not what I was expecting when we were at the University of Victoria campus. It's definitely a bookstore I wish I had at my university - it's got a nice mix of books - academic, fiction, non-fiction etc and nicely laid out. I have to say though, there's one thing I don't get about Canada - why are new books so expensive. I wonder if that's why there is such an abundance of used bookstores? 

As part of my escape from thesis, I was treated to a trip to Seattle - as it wasn't too far (2 hours and 45 mins to downtown Seattle). We left Victoria late Wednesday afternoon and got back Friday morning. So what can you do in 36 hours in Seattle? Surprisingly, quite a bit. Catching up with friends on the first night, spending the whole of the next day cruising the city -  coffee drinking (well hot chocolate for me, as I don't drink coffee), seafood eating, a stop at Pike Place Market, and obviously bookstore hopping along the way - and then sleeping on the journey back. Would I go to Seattle again? Definitely!!! Hopefully for much longer. So the bookstores we checked out!

  Globe Bookstore, Revolution, Arundel and Lamplight Books
In Pioneer Square, there was the Globe Bookstore, Arundel Books and Revolution Books. All independent stores, specialising in different things. The Globe Bookstore is small with a great selection of used books, Arundel Books is underground and has tons and tons and tons of used books and nooks (yes nooks) with even more books, while Revolution Books had books on Women's Studies, Violence Against Women, Globalisation, US Imperialism and more. It had a cool Fiction section as well where we got John Steinbeck's Dubious Battle and Working Days: The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath for my partner's father. In Pike Place Market we checked Lamplight Books and Left Bank Books and Lamplight Books. Left Bank Books was awesome - no idea how to explain it other than calling it a left-y bookstore with range of books on politics, environmentalism, feminism, workers' rights and more. Lamplight Books is further inside the Market but is another adorable used bookstore. 

While in the downtown area, we also stopped by the Seattle Public Library - awesome building and great views if you go up to the 10th floor. It's huuge and 
Pike Place Market, Left Bank books,
Inside the Seattle Public Library,
The Elliot Bay Book Company



probably the coolest public library I have ever seen and been to. 

By nighttime, we were in Capitol Hill - and our last stop before dinner and drinks was The Elliot Bay Book Company. Unfortunately my pictures do not do any justice to how beautiful it is. It's so spacious with books  everywhere, reading areas for customers ... and there's a cafe - have I mentioned I have a thing for bookstores and cafe's.

All the bookstores, were uniquely beautiful in their own ways, and more and more as I get the opportunity to visit different books stores in different parts of the world, I am reminded how much I absolutely love bookstores. Overall, it was a great break - really what I needed. 

Here are a few more photos of the bookstores on the inside. 


Tempted to touch. 


The Elliot Bay Book Company
The Elliot Bay Book Company


The Globe Bookstore

Seattle Public Library




Left Bank Books ... and just in case you were ever curious about what a Gnome reading looks like. 


11:41 2 Comments
Happy New Year!!!! It's only a few days into 2014 and already there are six new releases for the first five months of the year to look forward to. That's pretty amazing! So here we go!!!


In January, there are two new releases. Foreign Gods Inc., by Okey Ndibe, which is published by Soho Press, will be out January 16th. It tells the story of Ike, a New York-based Nigerian cab driver who sets out to steal the statue of an ancient war deity from his home village and sell it to a New York gallery. Ike's plan is fueled by desperation. Despite a degree in economics from a major American college, his strong accent has barred him from the corporate world. Forced to eke out a living as a cab driver, he is unable to manage the emotional and material needs of a temperamental African American bride and a widowed mother demanding financial support. When he turns to gambling, his mounting losses compound his woes. 


And so he travels back to Nigeria to steal the statue, where he has to deal with old friends, family, and a mounting conflict between those in the village who worship the deity, and those who practice Christianity.

A meditation on the dreams, promises and frustrations of the immigrant life in America; the nature and impact of religious conflicts; an examination of the ways in which modern culture creates or heightens infatuation with the 'exotic', including the desire to own strange objects and hanker after ineffable illusions; and an exploration of the shifting nature of memory Foreign Gods is a brilliant work of fiction that illuminates our globally interconnected world like no other.

Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor  is about a splintered family in Kenya—a story of power and deceit, unrequited love, survival and sacrifice. It is published by Knopf and will be released January 28th. 

Odidi Oganda, running for his life, is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi. His grief-stricken sister, Ajany, just returned from Brazil, and their father bring his body back to their crumbling home in the Kenyan drylands, seeking some comfort and peace. But the murder has stirred memories long left untouched and unleashed a series of unexpected events: Odidi and Ajany’s mercurial mother flees in a fit of rage; a young Englishman arrives at the Ogandas’ house, seeking his missing father; a hardened policeman who has borne witness to unspeakable acts reopens a cold case; and an all-seeing Trader with a murky identity plots an overdue revenge. In scenes stretching from the violent upheaval of contemporary Kenya back through a shocking political assassination in 1969 and the Mau Mau uprisings against British colonial rule in the 1950s, we come to learn the secrets held by this parched landscape, buried deep within the shared past of the family and of a conflicted nation.

Here is a spellbinding novel about a brother and sister who have lost their way; about how myths come to pass, history is written, and war stains us forever.


Boy, Snow, Bird will be published February 27th.This is the fifth novel from award-winning author Helen Oyeyemi, who was named in 2013 as one of Granta's best of young British novelists. Boy, Snow, Bird is a deeply moving novel about three women and an unbreakable bond. 

BOY Novak turns twenty and decides to try for a brand-new life. Flax Hill, Massachusetts, isn't exactly a welcoming town, but it does have the virtue of being the last on the bus route she took from New York. Flax Hill is also the hometown of Arturo Whitman - craftsman, widower, and father of Snow.

SNOW is mild-mannered, radiant and deeply cherished - exactly the sort of little girl Boy never was, and Boy is utterly beguiled by her. If Snow displays a certain inscrutability at times, that's simply a characteristic she shares with her father, harmless until Boy gives birth to Snow's sister, Bird. 

When BIRD is born Boy is forced to re-evaluate the image Arturo's family have presented to her, and Boy, Snow and Bird are broken apart. 

Sparkling with wit and vibrancy, Boy, Snow, Bird is a deeply moving novel about three women and the strange connection between them. It confirms Helen Oyeyemi's place as one of the most original and dynamic literary voices of her generation. 

On March 20th, Teju Cole's novella EveryDay is for The Thief will be published by Faber & Faber. First published in 2007 by Nigerian publisher Casava Republic, it will now be available outside of Nigeria. 

A young man decides to visit Nigeria after years of absence. Ahead lies the difficult journey back to the family house and all its memories; meetings with childhood friends and above all, facing up to the paradox of Nigeria, whose present is as burdened by the past as it is facing a new future.

Along the way, our narrator encounters life in Lagos. He is captivated by a woman reading on a danfo; attempts to check his email are frustrated by Yahoo boys; he is charmingly duped buying fuel. He admires the grace of an aunty, bereaved by armed robbers and is inspired by the new malls and cultural venues. The question is: should he stay or should he leave? But before the story can even begin, he has to queue for his visa.

Every Day is for the Thief is a striking portrait of Nigeria in change. Through a series of cinematic portraits of everyday life in Lagos, Teju Cole provides a fresh approach to the returnee experience.

Hodder & Stoughton will first release Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon in April. Then in May Sarah Lotz's The Three will be published. 

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor will be out April 10th. Three strangers, each isolated by his or her own problems: Adaora, the marine biologist. Anthony, the rapper famous throughout Africa. Agu, the troubled soldier. Wandering Bar Beach in Lagos, Nigeria's legendary mega-city, they're more alone that they've ever been before. 

But when something like a meteorite plunges into the ocean and a tidal wave overcomes them, these three people will find themselves bound together in ways never imagined. Together with Ayodele, a visitor from beyond the stars, they must race through Lagos and against time itself in order to save the city, the world ... and themselves. 

'There was no time to flee. No time to turn. No time to shriek. And there was no pain. It was like being thrown into the stars.'


The Three by Sarah Lotz is out May 22nd.

They're here ... The boy. The boy watch the boy watch the dead people oh Lordy there's so many ... They're coming for me now. We're all going soon. All of us. Pastor Len warn them that the boy he's not to --


The last words of Pamela May Donald (1961 -2012)

Black Thursday. The day that will never be forgotten. The day that four passenger planes crash, at almost exactly the same moment, at four different points around the globe. 

There are only four survivors. Three are children, who emerge from the wreckage seemingly unhurt. But they are not unchanged. 

And the fourth is Pamela May Donald, who lives just long enough to record a voice message on her phone. 

A message that will change the world.

The message is a warning.

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About me

Founded in 2011, bookshy represents two things: the young me who was so shy I escaped through books, and the older me whose shelf is always one book shy of being full.

bookshy is a space where I celebrate, promote and recognise contemporary African literature - although sometimes I go back in time to commemorate the greats. It is about the books I love, the books I have read and the books that I am dying to read.

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      • One for the Kids: 'Akissi' by Marguerite Abouet an...
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